


And Hum Along

by stolemyslumber



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-16
Updated: 2012-02-16
Packaged: 2017-10-31 07:29:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/341539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stolemyslumber/pseuds/stolemyslumber
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Not that anyone from the Guild is going to change their mind about Ray’s status after one night of fake smiles and handshakes, but. Well, it’s not like it could make things any worse.</i>
</p><p>Ray meets Brad at a party, but things aren't quite as they seem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Hum Along

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song "Hum Along" by Ludo.
> 
> Thanks to [lakeeffectgirl](http://lakeeffectgirl.livejournal.com/) for beta-reading!

*

 

“I hate these things,” someone says. Ray looks up, startled, to see a man leaning against the wall a few feet away. Ray must have been too focused on staring at his shoes and nursing a vodka tonic -- which mostly just tastes like tonic, although Ray’s not sure what vodka tastes like -- to notice him walk into the room.

“Yeah,” Ray says noncommittally, because he’s under strict instructions from Nate to play nice tonight. Not that anyone from the Guild is going to change their mind about Ray’s status after one night of fake smiles and handshakes, but. Well, it’s not like it could make things any worse. And the invite was too much of a miracle to waste.

“Can I get you a refill?” the guy asks. Ray looks over. And up. And tries not to let his face show how much he wants to say yes. But he shouldn’t. He should go get his own drink and try to mingle. He’s about to say no when the guy pulls his jacket open to reveal a silver flask in the inside pocket.

Ray glances up at him. The guy raises an eyebrow, inviting. A little liquid courage couldn’t hurt, right? Maybe Ray will stop being paralyzed with worry at the thought of saying something stupid that will fuck up his life even more and start being able to say charming things that will convince powerful people to help him _un_ fuck his life. Ray holds out his glass.

“I’m Brad,” the guy says as he pours a generous helping of something clear into Ray’s glass.

“Ray.” He takes a sip and almost chokes. Alcohol apparently tastes like burning, jesus christ.

“Too much?” Brad asks.

“No, no, it’s. I probably need it,” Ray says, looking out the door at the party going on without him. So many social cues and mores, just waiting for Ray to stumble along and fuck them up. He takes another drink. It goes down easier.

“Not used to the gauntlet?” Brad asks. “My first party, I accidentally implied that Councilman Davies didn’t read a bill before he voted on it. Which he probably didn’t, but mentioning it definitely got me into trouble. The next time I showed up, I didn’t think they were going to let me in.”

Ray huffs out a laugh. “Yeah, but you fixed it. I mean, you’re here, right? You must’ve sucked up the right people.”

“Something like that. Why, who d’you need to suck up to?”

Ray takes a drink. “Everybody, basically. Or nobody, ‘cause it’s kind of a lost cause.”

“What’d you do, fuck the Head Council’s daughter or something?” Brad asks, still smiling like whatever Ray’s in trouble for is no big deal.

Ray bites his lip. Takes another drink for courage. Takes a breath. “I’m -- I was a scholar. At the Guild. There was an exhibition, just for some of the higher-ups. The big investors and Elementals. They wanted to show them the new kids, but mostly they wanted to show off Graves. He’s --”

“About to go up for apprenticeship. I’ve heard about him. They’re saying he’s got more power than the rest of his class combined.”

“Yeah, well. I sort of -- they put him up against a few of us, so he could show off, I guess. And I sort of beat him.”

Ray dares a glance up, and Brad’s staring at him, eyebrows raised. “Are you serious?” he asks.

“Yeah. I mean, it was probably just a fluke, right, he wasn’t. He wasn’t trying, or anything. But everybody freaked the fuck -- um. Everybody freaked out. I got suspended, and they’re trying to pretend it didn’t happen, but Nate says half of Graves’ big-ticket apprentice offers dried up. Which means the Guild is gonna look bad.”

“Nate?” Brad repeats. Like that’s the most important part of it to anyone but Ray.

“My wealthy benefactor,” Ray says. “Minus the wealthy part.”

“He took you in?” Brad guesses. He unscrews the cap of his flask and pours some more into Ray’s glass. Ray takes a long drink before he answers.

“Yeah,” he says, and he hasn’t stopped feeling like an asshole for putting Nate in that position. “I mean, I knew him before. I met him when I came last year for my endowment tests. He says he’ll apprentice me, outside the Guild system. If I want him to.”

“Well, they won’t let you practice if you haven’t signed on with someone,” Brad says, tucking the flask away. “If the Guild doesn’t re-enroll you, going outside the system is your best option.”

“My only option,” Ray says dryly. His cheeks feel warm. He takes another drink, but his ice cubes have all melted. “But he’s already -- he won’t say anything, but they’re going after his client base. Just for letting me crash in his spare room.”

“They don’t like to be proven wrong,” Brad says. Ray shakes his head and suddenly he’s listing sideways into Brad, who wraps an arm around his waist to steady him. “You, scholar, are a lightweight,” he says, sounding amused.

“‘m not,” Ray says into the lapel of Brad’s fancy suit jacket. Brad makes a noise of disagreement. “‘m not a scholar,” Ray says quietly. Brad pulls him closer.

“Not every Elemental went through the Guild,” he says. “Not everyone needs to.”

Ray takes a drink. Brad’s hand closes over his, gently pulling the glass out of Ray’s grasp.

“How do you feel?” Brad asks. He must have put the glass somewhere, because his fingers start carding through Ray’s hair. He pulls Ray off the wall and starts guiding him out of the room through a side door, heading toward the hotel lobby. Ray tries to focus on the question.

“I feel funny,” he settles on. He feels tingly and weird, warm and drifting in a good way. He can barely feel his feet moving underneath him. “I think I’m drunk,” he says wonderingly. He’s never had more than a sip of wine before. He wants to ask if this is what drunk feels like, but Brad’s steering them into one of the elevators.

“I think you’re a little drunk, yeah,” Brad says. He props Ray up in the corner of the elevator and works Ray’s cell phone out of his pocket. Ray loops one finger through Brad’s belt loop and watches Brad’s mouth as he talks to someone.

“Hey,” Brad says, patting Ray’s cheek. “Talk to Nate for me, okay?”

He presses the phone to Ray’s ear. “Ray?” Nate says on the other end of the line.

“Heyyy!” Ray says. Nate is awesome. Nate bought him new sneakers and cooks him dinner and is _awesome_. “Nate. _Nate_ , I think Brad got me drunk.”

“I don’t disagree,” Nate says, sounding on the edge of laughter. “Listen, Ray,” he says, suddenly serious. “Brad’s gonna take care of you, okay? And I need you to let him.”

Ray doesn’t know what that means exactly, but Nate is really smart. “Okay,” Ray says. Nate says goodnight, and then Brad’s leading him off the elevator and leaning him against a wall, sliding a series of keys into the lock of a door. The lock of a door of a hotel suite only Elementals are allowed to open.

“Wait,” Ray says, reaching out to still Brad’s hands. “Wait. Are we -- we aren’t s’posed... We’re trespast -- we’re. This is bad.”

“Definitely too much,” Brad says under his breath. And then, louder, he says, “It’s okay. I have the keys, see?”

Ray frowns at the keys. Brad puts another into the lock and turns it counter-clockwise. Five keys. Each one has to be turned a certain way. Maybe Brad borrowed them, but no, the keys don’t work in the wrong hands, without the right magic. Which means -- “Oh,” Ray says, and then he loses his balance, tilting sideways. Brad catches him as the door opens and pulls Ray inside.

“Don’t fall asleep,” Brad says, settling Ray into a soft-cushioned chair. A moment later, he presses an open water bottle into Ray’s hands and tells him to drink. “Way too much,” he says again. He moves away, across the room, and starts moving things around.

Ray drinks, careful not to spill. A while later, there’s a rushing sound in his ears, and then the low, ever-present hum under the edges of his awareness is gone. It’s like an itch, one he didn’t know he had, just got scratched. Brad’s walking toward him, and Ray watches him, confused.

“Better?” Brad asks. He takes the water bottle, takes a drink, and puts it back in Ray’s hands. Ray takes a drink, on autopilot.

“What’d you do?” he asks. He feels less drunk all of a sudden. Nowhere near sober, but his head is clearer.

“Just helped a little,” Brad says. “The alcohol is going to make this next part easier, but we got you a little _too_ relaxed.”

“What part?” Ray asks. “What’re you doing?”

“How long did you study?” Brad asks instead of answering.

Ray licks his lips, tasting water. “Three months, at the Guild. My village had an elder, but she had her own apprentice already. She didn’t teach.”

“Three months,” Brad echoes. “And they never had a clue.”

Ray makes a questioning noise, and then Brad pulls him to his feet and to the middle of the room. There’s a pile of blankets and pillows on the floor, and he lays Ray down on them gently. Brad kneels over him and presses his palm to Ray’s chest. Ray blinks up at him, too confused and dizzy to ask what the fuck is going on.

“Do you remember what Nate told you? On the phone?” Brad asks. Ray remembers. _Let him_ , Nate had said. Ray feels a pull in the center of his chest, light, testing. “Do you trust him?” Brad says, insistent. Ray thinks, _yes_ , and the pull goes straight through him and rips everything wide open.

It’s like sunlight. Sunlight, and noise, and water like the ocean Ray’s never seen, rough and unyielding. He’s laying on the floor and he’s drowning and flying all at the same time.

“Can you feel my hand, Ray?” he hears Brad saying, from a distance. He breathes in, out, wet and shaking. The room swims into focus above him. Brad’s face, concern fading away as his mouth spreads into a grin.

Ray is clutching Brad’s hand and wrist with his own hands. There’s color bleeding up Brad’s arm, a shining gold that creeps up under the collar of his undershirt -- when did he take off his suit, Ray thinks, and then dismisses the thought -- and across his collarbone.

Brad leans in closer, touching Ray’s face. Brad’s crying, steady tears dripping down onto Ray’s shirt. He looks happy, though. Joyful. Ray presses his face into Brad’s hand and feels wetness there. He blinks, vision clearing as tears fall from his eyes and roll down his face.

“They didn’t even know what to do with you,” Brad says. “Didn’t even see you.”

“What did you do,” Ray says again. He can feel every inch of the room echoing back at him. And he can feel Brad, somehow. Not just his hands, but something deeper, more _real_ than skin. “What -- oh, I --”

“It’s okay,” Brad says. Ray can feel the truth of it, the honesty in the words. “This is okay, this is right. You’re okay.”

Ray shakes his head. “I can _feel_ ,” he says. It’s too much. The room gets smaller, suddenly, until all he feels is the air, the blankets, the floor. Brad.

“Better?” Brad asks. Ray nods. He doesn’t understand. “I know,” Brad says, even though Ray didn’t say it out loud. “I bet they said you never learned to shield, didn’t they? They asked you to let your shield down a little and you didn’t know what they meant.”

“Most kids learn,” Ray recites. “Most kids need to protect themselves. No shield means you’re not strong. Low levels, low response.”

“But you aced all the other tests,” Brad says. It’s not a guess.

“Only reason I got in.”

“What you did,” Brad says. He clears his throat, starts over. “When you were just a baby, you felt everything. The whole world’s magic, coming back at you. It was too much. It hurt, and you didn’t know what it was or how to control it. I bet your mom told you you used to cry all the time.”

“Day and night,” Ray says. He doesn’t remember. He feels like he should. Like he could, maybe.

“And then you just stopped. Because you figured out how to _make_ it stop. You built up a shield, so high and strong and perfect that later, when you got older and learned about magic and all the things it might let you do someday, you didn’t even realize it was there.”

And Ray _remembers_. A noise like screaming, every touch like a shuddering thing all the way through him. Pain like he’s never felt since, heartache and headache and broken bones that weren’t his, layering onto him. He remembers his mother telling him the day he stopped crying was the day his grandpapa died, and he remembers that, too, a hurt all around him, closing in until he finally made it stop.

“I know,” Brad says, and Ray can feel that he does. He understands. “I know, I’m sorry. It shouldn’t have been like that. Someone should have helped you. Back then, or at the Guild, someone should have found you and taught you how to control it.”

“I can’t,” Ray says, shaking his head. “I can’t control it.”

“No,” Brad agrees. “You’ve spent a long time with your shield up all the way. You don’t know how to let just a little in at a time. My shield is helping right now, but even just the room was too much.”

Brad’s shield feels like a solid wall around them. A moat, even. Keeping the bad things out. When Ray starts looking closer, it’s an intrusion -- he can feel Brad’s instinct to draw back or push Ray away, but he doesn’t. Ray pulls back on his own, letting his mind settle and relax.

“You’re going to show me,” he guesses. There’s color spreading across his own skin now, a soft silver that he can feel moving over him.

Brad smiles. His thumb brushes over Ray’s cheek. “I’m going to show you everything.”

 

*


End file.
